FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT HIGH RISE APARTMENT - PAGE 5

A 52-year-old woman was found shot to death Wednesday afternoon in a high-rise apartment building on the city's South Side, according to Chicago police. The woman was shot twice in the head, police said. Her body was found about 3 p.m. in the first-floor management office of a high-rise at 7345 S. South Shore Drive. The Cook County medical examiner's office identified the victim as Nada Shegich of Crete. Police would not release details of the investigation.

In the hot real estate market of the Near South Side, workers are starting to renovate the four high-rises in the Chicago Housing Authority's Raymond M. Hilliard Center, near Cermak Road and State Street, which is being preserved as a mixed-income apartment complex. The work is part of the CHA's $1.6 billion, 10-year plan to replace high-rise apartment complexes for low-income residents with mixed-income developments. Hilliard is the first of seven complexes where rehab and construction work will begin in the next year, officials said.

An elderly Gold Coast resident was seriously injured Friday night when a purse snatcher knocked her to the ground, police said. Giselle Steeg, 87, of 1117 N. Dearborn St., was in serious condition at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after a woman grabbed her purse on the sidewalk in front of her high-rise apartment building at about 8 p.m., according to police. Steeg apparently suffered the injury when she hit her head on the sidewalk as she fell, according to the office. She was to have been kept in the intensive-care unit overnight "because they want to monitor her very closely," hospital spokesman James Henri said.

A panel that includes an architect and an urban planner will discuss a developer's plans to build a high-rise apartment building downtown. The proposed site of the building is the land occupied by the Washington National Insurance Co., Chicago Avenue and Church Street. The company is scheduled to move its offices out of the city. The panel discussion will take place at 2 p.m. Sunday in the First United Methodist Church, Hinman Avenue and Church Street. It will be sponsored by the Historical Preservation League of Evanston.

Eight people suffered minor injuries when an elevator plunged eight floors to ground level in a high-rise apartment building at 5322 S. State St. in the Chicago Housing Authority's Robert Taylor Homes complex, according to Fire Department officials. The eight, including three security guards who worked in the building, were treated at Provident Hospital. Three other people who were in the elevator during the plunge Monday night refused hospital treatment, police said. Inspectors from the CHA's technical services offices were inspecting the elevator to determine what caused it to drop nonstop to the ground floor after picking up passengers on the 15th floor and making a stop at the 8th floor.

No one was injured in a small fire on a balcony on a Gold Coast high-rise apartment building tonight, a fire official said. Fire crews, including six ambulances, were called to the apartment building at 1000 N. Lake Shore Drive about 7:50 p.m. The fire was on a balcony on the 49th floor of the building, and was quickly extinguished, said Will Knight, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department. No one was injured, and Fire Department crews did not have to order an evacuation of the building, Knight said.

A federal housing official pledged Thursday night to support a plan that Uptown neighborhood organizers say could create a model for affordable housing with tenant-based management. Gertrude Jordan, regional director of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, told more than 150 area residents that she will recommend to Washington that a developer be permitted to take over the delinquent, federally insured mortgage of a 231-unit high-rise apartment building at 850 W. Eastwood Ave. Under the plan supported by the Organization of the NorthEast, the developer, Chicago Community Development Corp.

Four people were injured Wednesday morning after a fire at a high-rise apartment building in Chicago, officials said. Three residents were in fair condition Wednesday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with smoke-related injuries, Chief Kevin MacGregor said. One firefighter was injured after falling in a stairwell during the cleanup at 1221 N. Dearborn St., MacGregor said. The three-alarm fire started on the building's fourth floor around 1:40 a.m. Wednesday morning, MacGregor said.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a legal brief Tuesday supporting a suit by North Side housing advocates to stop the eviction of low-income families from a high-rise apartment building at 833 Buena Ave. "This is a home run," said Josh Hoyt, executive director of Organization of the NorthEast. Two years ago, residents filed suit to stop owners of the 209-unit building from prepaying their federally insured mortgage, which would have allowed the owners to rerent the building to wealthier tenants.

Three people were taken to hospitals Wednesday night after a fire in a high-rise apartment building at 7022 S. South Shore Drive, a Chicago Fire Department spokesman said. The fire began in an eighth floor apartment of the 12-story brick building at about 7:45 p.m. and was extinguished at 8:20, said fire spokesman Mike Cosgrove. Cosgrove said those injured appeared to be suffering from smoke inhalation. Patricia Hymon, who lives on the eighth floor, said firefighters led her and six other people down the stairway to safety after the seven holed up in her apartment where they opened a window and covered the door with a blanket.